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“You don’t have to go far from home to hear great music,” said Bev Anderson of Brockville, just one of the fans who turned out for the 5th Annual Upper Canada  Bluegrass Festival held at Upper Canada Campground September 16-18.

Hosted by campground owners David and Ruth Wells, with the musical talent organized by Mike Anderson, over 110 campers and  a large number of day visitors came out to enjoy some of the best bluegrass music around. “We had great weather all weekend,” Wells said, “and there are a lot of die hard fans for bluegrass out there. The people who come to these events are terrific.”

Although Wells reported that numbers were somewhat down from other years, due, he thought to the economy and high gas prices, it was an exciting two day event.

“It’s been a great turn-out,” said Terry Joe Banjo, who acted as emcee for the festival, performed with a number of groups and staged workshops throughout the weekend. “We had eight good bands performing. A lot of exciting music here.”

Mike Anderson, who performed with his own band Northwind, organized the musical line-up,  and felt it had been an excellent festival. “We had a lot of support. The workshops in instruments like guitar, banjo and mandolin also drew many people. No question, top performers love to run workshops and share their skills and knowledge.

That’s what’s so great about bluegrass.”

Bands performing included Hard Ryde, Grassland, Dave Nichols & Spare Change, Jan Purcell & Pine Road, Bill White & White Pine, Concession 23, Northwind and Maple Hill.

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The Iroquois Waterfront Advisory committee has begun the process of gathering information.

They requested council’s help in producing and distributing questionnaires to those people in the “Iroquois Ward.”

South Dundas council agreed to the request at the April 3rd council meeting in Williamsburg.

According to an email sent to the township from the Iroquois Waterfront committee’s Howard Kirkby, the group plans to use the responses to the questionnaire to create a detailed summary report.

In addition, “this report will then be provided to the public along with our upcoming interim report for public discussion in an open meeting to be scheduled. We plan to submit a final report to council by September.”

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The South Dundas Sports Lending Library, established in 2012 to allow residents of South Dundas to access a wide variety of sporting goods, is becoming very popular.

“The Sports Lending Library is working very well,” said Ben Macpherson, South Dundas recreation program coordinator. 

Macpherson established the program with a successful Trillium Funding Application and now has sports equipment of all kinds available, for for residents of South Dundas to freely borrow.

“The snowshoes have been very popular this winter,” said Macpherson, who says that area schools have made use of them to provide their students the opportunity to try something new.

“The schools are strong supporters of the program,” he said, adding that currently one of the schools has borrowed a number of helmets and skates for a skating trip to the canal in Ottawa.

“Also getting a lot of use are the skates at the arena,” said Macpherson. 

“We had one person borrow a pair because he hadn’t been skating in 20 years. Now, he comes every week and borrows the same pair.”

That’s the whole point of the library, facilitating physical activity for South Dundas residents.

The Sports Lending Library is located beside the Dundas County Food Bank. Available for borrow are snowshoes of all sizes, basketballs, volleyballs, footballs, cross country skis, badminton and bocce ball sets. Skates and helmets are available within the Morrisburg Arena in all sizes, from children’s to youth to adult.

“Several families have borrowed the cross county skis,” said Macpherson, explaining how great it is for people to have the opportunity to enjoy these outdoor winter sports without having to invest in the costly equipment. 

“It’s also great if you have visitors coming to town,” he said explaining that you can outfit them to enjoy some recreational activities with you, again without having to invest in equipment.

Looking forward to the summer months, Macpherson is hoping to bring in canoes and kayaks to the lending library.

Anyone with questions about the South Dundas Sports Lending Library can contact Ben Macpherson at 613-543-2937 or bmacpherson@southdundas.com

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